


shadows settle on the place you left

by i_was_human



Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Illnesses, Loneliness, Post-Apocalypse, Reunions, Snow, no men we beta like die, uwu hours kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26224045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: 𝓈𝑒𝓉𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒻𝒾𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒾𝓃𝓈𝒾𝒹𝑒𝓈 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒻𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝒹𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓉𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓂𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝒾'𝓂 𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒽𝒾𝓂-𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓉𝒽, 𝒹𝒶𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓉𝑒𝓇
Relationships: Ahn Jaewon | Wyld & Kang Dongho | D.Min & Kim Daehyun & Lee Minsoo
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11





	shadows settle on the place you left

He despises leaky faucets.

It's a very specific thing to despite, he thinks, but leaky faucets mean a deficiency of water, and with Daehyun sick, clean water is needed more than ever.

He pulls his scarf up over his mouth, squinting his eyes against the snow. It's freezing - the end of the world painted in pure white - and he feels both out of place and horribly suited.

It's lonely out here, lonely and quiet and cold.

Such is the end of the world.

He yanks his hood up over his head, grimacing as the cold wind cuts through the worn fabric. He needs to go shopping again - "shopping" meaning looting whatever stores he can find that might have something useful - and nowhere is that more evident than in the worn-out gloves covering his hands.

He probably looks like a hobo.

Still, this town is desolate enough that he doesn't need to worry about his appearance. It's hours away from bastions of civilization, the location a remnant of the time he hauled Daehyun into a van and drove for as long as the car could handle, and in a sick and twisted way, it's home.

If one ignores the corpses, that is.

Dongho's gotten good at that.

The snow crunches under his feet, and he squints up at the weakened sun, pulling his backpack higher on his shoulders. That's what killed them - not the earthquakes or the storms or the disease, but the sun.

The weak, weak, hopelessly weak sun.

His gaze drifts back to his feet, and he steps over yet another dead body, rotting and snow-covered. 

(jaewon liked to say a word for them, once. if nothing else, then a simple "i hope you go somewhere better".)

The memory sends a shard of pain through his heart, and he screws his eyes shut, stopping dead in the middle of the road.

It's so lonely here, here in the endless quiet.

(dongho's so cold.)

* * *

"I don't care what you say," Minsoo mumbles, pulling his goggles over his eyes, "the end of the world is the rebirth of steampunk fashion."

Jaewon smiles, gaze flitting to the winding road. "They look nice on you, hyung."

"Yeah, but do I look _cool_?"

"Yeah."

It's too positive in this car, Minsoo thinks.

He still hates himself for that day - for going out without Dongho and Daehyun, for leaving them behind at the camp, no matter how heavily-defended it was, and he knows they _can't_ be dead, _can't_ be any of the charred, nameless bodies he saw in the snow.

He won't accept it.

He shoves his hair out of his eyes, a bandanna winding around his forehead as his scarf covers his mouth. "Guys at the trading post said they heard about a small town in the mountains," he states, flicking the engine a few times. Once it comes to life, it's with a guttural roar, and Minsoo guns the gas, their dilapidated car launching forwards at the action. "You think that could be it?"

He's asked that hundreds of times, and just like every time, Jaewon responds with the same thing.

"Always."

It's too empty in the car, Minsoo thinks, has been for two and a half years.

Someday soon, they'll fill it.

* * *

"You have to eat something, Dae."

Daehyun leans against him, face flushed and dark hair sticking to his forehead. "Nnn..."

He's wearing too many clothes to bring the fever down, Dongho knows, but it's a balancing act - keep him warm enough to stop hypothermia, keep him cold enough to keep him breathing.

He has no fucking clue what he's doing.

"C'mon," Dongho murmurs, lifting the spoon to poke the younger man's lips. "Just a bit, hmm?"

Daehyun slowly opens his lips, and Dongho pops the spoon in before he can argue against it. There's a tense moment where he's unsure if he's going to swallow, but he does, and Dongho can only hope and pray it's enough to keep him breathing just a bit longer.

"Hot," Daehyun mumbles, flopping back to the floor. "'s so hot, hyung..."

"I know," Dongho whispers, tugging the quilt back over Daehyun's shoulders. "I know."

He sits there until Daehyun falls asleep - a fitful, restless affair, occasionally punctuated by pathetic whimpers or broken sobs - and even after, scarf hanging around his neck and dark hair blowing in the breeze.

He can't lose Daehyun.

With what little bit of daylight he has left, he pulls a book out of his bag and starts to read, eyes straining to make out the words in the dim light.

There's a hospital in this mountain town.

There has to be something in there to help Daehyun.

When the snow picks up too much to see the sun, Dongho turns on their portable heater, using the flickering flame to illuminate the pages of the medical textbook. He doesn't understand some of the words - thank god for diagrams - but he pushes forwards nonetheless.

He has to fix this.

* * *

When they arrive at the mountain town, it's at the height of a snowstorm.

Minsoo, being the intellectual he is, suggests that they wait in the car, but Jaewon immediately vetos the idea in favor of conserving car battery. Minsoo's gaze flits over the street - barely visible through the thick blanket of snow - and he bites his lip, unsure of where, if anywhere, is safe to go.

And then-

there!

A small flicker of gold among the storm catches his eye, and he elbows Jaewon a few times, gesturing emphatically towards a building a few yards down. 

There's light in that window.

Someone's there.

Now, Minsoo's well aware that wide-eyed idealism is a sure-fire way to get shot. Fuck, he's been the one _doing_ the shooting on more than one occasion. But it would take someone really fucking desperate to turn them away from a snowstorm this bad, and it's this Minsoo banks on when he counts down a time for Jaewon to run.

The younger man stares at him, eyes wide with horror, yet he still jolts into motion as soon as Minsoo says "go". They sprint down the street, the wind howling and ground slick, and it's only once they make it into the lobby that Minsoo can breathe a bit easier. 

Minsoo sighs, readjusting his goggles as he stomps off his boots. "Alright. It is _so cold_."

Jaewon nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he pulls off his own. Bundled up like this, he looks like a teddy bear - though no more than usual, Minsoo thinks - and there's an overpowering urge to squish his cheeks.

He doesn't, because he's an intelligent adult who believes in consent, but he wants to.

Really, really wants to.

"Hello?" he calls, stuffing his hands in his pockets so as to avoid temptation. "Is anyone there?"

In response, a gunshot rings through the air.

* * *

In Dongho's defense, he wasn't actually planning to hit them.

One or two warning shots normally sufficed when chasing people away, much to Daehyun's chagrin, but it'd always worked in the past.

Still, the two standing in his lobby don't move a muscle.

Dongho folds his arms over his chest, tugging the scarf up over his nose. "Who are you?"

Silence.

"Get out."

An even longer, more profound silence.

He can't see a bit of the smaller one's face, but his posture is completely relaxed, with none of the normal fear that comes from behind shot at. 

Psychopath, probably.

The taller one - though not taller by much - stares at him, wide eyes reflecting pain, and for a moment, Dongho sees Jaewon in him.

The posture, the eyes, the expression - it's all so _painfully_ Jaewon that he wants to cry.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Dongho?"

The smaller one pulls off his goggles and shakes out his hair, and _oh_ -

oh.

Wide eyes, small nose, a crooked smile-

"Minsoo?"

" _Dongho!_ "

He stumbles back as Minsoo - Minsoo, Minsoo, it's really Minsoo, he's really here - crashes into his chest, hands coming up to grip fistfuls of his jacket. His legs tremble, and he lowers them to the ground, which only gives Minsoo a better vantage point to climb into his lap, hooking his legs around Dongho's hips and pressing their foreheads together.

It's hot and cold all at once, and Dongho only realizes he's crying when Minsoo rubs the tears off his cheeks, brown hair - not the silver of the moon, not the silver of the snow that blankets every surface and kills oh so many, but the brown of warmth and life and forgotten days - hanging in his eyes as his lips quirk into a hopeful grin.

"I missed you," Minsoo breathes, warm breath ghosting over Dongho's cheeks, and he blinks, hoping to scrub the burning from his eyes, but it's in vain. Icicles in the making drip down his cheeks and Minsoo rubs them away with gloved hands, lips curling into a gentle smile as his hands settle there, and the frozen, aching hole in Dongho's chest feels _so warm_.

And Jaewon - Jaewon, it must be Jaewon, their sweet, kind, loving Jaewon - disappeared into the ether, and Dongho's head whips around before Minsoo places his hands on his cheeks, pressing their foreheads together once more.

"Min-"

"Just a second," Minsoo whispers, eyes drifting shut. "I just need a second."

Slowly, slowly, he drifts into Dongho's arms, and Dongho lets him sit there - curled up in his lap at the end of the world - and cries.

* * *

Daehyun's fever rages, and Jaewon puts packs of snow on his forehead and under his jackets while Minsoo and Dongho scour the hospitals. It's surreal in the best possible way - the fact that Daehyun's _here_ , even sick and nothing even close to lucid - and Jaewon spends his time sitting with Daehyun in his lap, running his fingers through tangled black hair.

Daehyun wakes up once, fever-clouded eyes fixing on Jaewon as his lips curl into a half-grin. He mumbles some nonsense about dreams and flowers before lapsing back into unconsciousness, and Jaewon simply sits there, running his fingers through the youngest's hair as he prays to whatever god may be that his fever breaks. 

And someone, somewhere, listens.

Because the next time Daehyun opens his eyes, he sees Jaewon.

 _Really_ sees Jaewon - not a fever-haze of imagination - and Jaewon tries for a smile, hoping to god that it doesn't come out looking like he wants to cry.

"...hyung?"

Daehyun sounds so small, so confused, and Jaewon nods, harsh and desperate as his fingers run through Daehyun's hair.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me, Dae, it's Jaewon-hyung. It's me."

"You're real," Daehyun whispers, a tear streaking down his dirt-covered cheek. "Hyung..."

"Yeah," Jaewon breathes, and Daehyun's lips curl into a smile.

"I knew... I knew you'd be back. Always..."

Daehyun reaches up to cup Jaewon's cheek with one shaking hand, and the elder grips it as tightly as he can, pressing it to his cheek with all the force he can muster.

"Always," Jaewon vows, tears spilling from his eyes. "Always, Dae."

**Author's Note:**

> someday i will write a jaewon centric fic but today is NOT THAT DAY
> 
> also disastrous pacing but what else is new
> 
> if yall have fic reqs... hmu
> 
> fic title from youth by daughter
> 
> edit: lit fic discord server up and running!!
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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